Do you have friends that you’ve made online that are some of your besties?

My daughter Lauryn has always laughed about my online friends.

If you’re part of my generation, you know, the ones of us who remember what dialup sounded like, and can still hear AOL saying “you’ve got mail” in our memory… you probably remember the online message boards.

I was in a Yahoo “January 2000 babies” group that was local to St. Louis when I was pregnant with my daughter, and that group eventually moved to iVillage.com. Anyone else remember that?

Lauryn always laughs about her online friends that she’s had since she was born.

There are a few that we’re still friends with, in fact one of them worked at our venues for several years.

I mean, you just never know where your next team member is going to come from.

Fast forward to now, where we have all kinds of opportunities to make friends and network on social media.

One of the first friends I made when we started in business in the online space, in 2018, is my friend Chelly Ontis.

We met in what was called Tribe, it’s Stu McLaren’s course that is now called The Membership Experience.

It was literally the smallest connection that brought us together.

We were going to Stu’s meetup in Toronto, and she was asking who was going and wanted to connect there.

For some reason, I answered, and we started talking about all of our similarities. The first one was that we have the same first name, Michelle, and my family members call me Chelle, and she goes by Chelly, also spelled the same with a C.

We also still to this day talk every single day on Marco Polo, we brainstorm all the time, we support each other in our online businesses, and also with any personal things that come up.

Chelly and I both also have all kinds of friends in online places now, I love it so much.

And she’s not the only one I met there and am now BFFs with.

My friend Allison and I have also met up with each other’s families.

I thought the course was a bit of an investment when I signed up, but I had no idea the life changing value it would give me even just personally.

The networking opportunities in online friendships are absolutely endless.

Even if you make a connection with someone online who isn’t in your exact same business or space, you would be so surprised at what you can do to serve each other’s audiences, and basically borrow each other’s audiences for your own business’ marketing.

I have a blast being a part of and watching friendships form in my programs.

I can’t tell you how happy it makes my heart when I see members of my Let’s Book Clients membership connecting and forming friendships.

I love seeing them all over the internet working together.

Is this something you do too? Or something you want to do?

My hot tip for this episode, is to tell you to keep your mind open to online connections that become friendships and your best business tools.

Whether it’s in a group you’re in, like I am in The Membership Experience, or one of my groups, The Wedding Vendors Community on Facebook or my Let’s Book Clients mastermind, or Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, wherever you like to hang out

Speaking of the DMs, mine are always open, so reach out if you need anything at all, I’m here for you.

Connect with me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/michellebraswellxo. See you there!